Description

*** Restored from the Original 2-Track Soundboard Tape ***

01. Broken Chord Can Sing a Little
02. Sit In The Middle Of Three Galopping Dogs
03. Stumble Then Rise On Some Awkward Morning
04. Movie (Never Made)
05. Blown-out Joy From Heaven's Mercied Hole
06. Built Then Burnt
07. Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River
08. Could've Moved Mountains
09. For Wanda

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Reviewer: NotPennysBoat - - June 13, 2008
Subject: Thanks again to Prof Stoned.
This is a wonderful capture of early Zion. Definitely recommended for anyone who wants to hear how the band has progressed over the years - or anybody who just likes quiet, beautiful music. For a cassette recording, it all sounds really good. I kind of like how metallic everything sounds. Sometimes limitation can actually create something altogether fascinating. I loved reading about all your adventures in putting this recording together. Thanks for your dedication because we really do appreciate it.

Please note: Built Then Burnt actually starts out with "This Gentle Heart's Like Shot Birds Fallen".

Reviewer: prof_stoned - - April 30, 2007
Subject: Thank you
Hi avalelejelelava,

Thanks for being attentive abd reporting the problem. It has now been solved, and you can go on DL/ing the complete Tr. 2.

Thansk!

Reviewer: avalelejelelava - - April 21, 2007
Subject: strange sound !
Hi Prof Stoned..
This bootleg has a very strange sound, the strings are very "electric" and are playing chamber music. But it remains beautiful.

There's a problem on track 2 ("sitting in the middle of 3 galloping dogs") : it's incomplete. could you fix it, please ?

Thanx !

Notes

Line Up:
Efrim: Vocals / Piano / Guitar / Tapes
Sophie: Vocals / Violin
Thierry: Upright Bass
Becky: Cello
Jessica: Violin
Ian: Guitar

Source A (Tr.1-9): Front-Of-House Soundboard (Stereo) -> Tascam 102MKII
Line age: Master Cassettes (TDK type I)-> Technics BX501 -> Tascam DA20
(@ 16/44.1) -> Adobe Audition (editing, pitch & L/R sync correction &
using UAD Pultec EQ) -> Cd Wave -> Flac (8)

Source B (Tr.09: last 1m37s): Unknown StereoMic + MiniDisc
Line age: CDr (#2) -> Adobe Audition -> Cd Wave -> Flac (8)

Source A Taped by Prof. Stoned
Source B Taped by ? (forgot his name)
Compilation Edited & Mastered by Prof. Stoned
Artwork by Koenraad Sebastiaan

Notes:

Nearly all the material from this (complete) recording comes from the first source.
I recorded the set on one side of a 90 minute tape and one side of a 60 minute tape.
The 60 minute tape cutted off halfway during 'For Wanda'.

In 2001, I did a transfer to a standalone CDr recorder with some pretty bad
EQ-choices (done on a crummy 7-band equaliser) built into the recording.
Many parts of the tapes are a bit hissy, because of the low input signal of these parts.
So basically I filtered off most frequencies above 6 kHz and boosted the mid range,
resulting in very dark and ear piercing sound.
I was just beginning to learn about sound and taping in general...
I handed out some copies to a couple of people.
The recording wasn't meant to end up in the traders scene, but did anyway.
The 2001 CDr copy omitted the whole 'Wanda' song and was faded out right after Tr. 8.

A year or two later, I discovered that an audience recording of the same show existed
and circulated out there.
The German taper had been selling his recording with a black/white copied sleeve.
That sleeve art was adapted from a Salvador Dali painting called "A Sublime moment".
I got myself a copy of the audience recording (for free, of course) and found
it to be a reasonable sounding recording with a complete version of 'For Wanda'.
A friend of mine -who had bought the audience CDr from the other taper at the time-
later recreated the art in color for this remaster (included here).

In 2004, I dug up the original tapes that were still lying at the attic of my parents house.
Considering the cold & moist environment the tapes had been lying in for three years,
they were in a good condition, and played fine.
Luckily, because other tapes in there had become unplayable after a couple of years.
I did a new remaster but wasn't happy with the results and I didn't circulate it.

Now, in 2007 -with three more years of mastering experience and way better
mastering tools- I decided to give it another go.
I went back to the original cassette's and transferred them
to the digital domain for the third (and last) time.
After I tried some things with EQ-ing & multiband compression,
I came to the conclusion that the tape sounded best without any processing,
and basically left the sound as is on the original mastertapes.
I just added a touch of 100 kHz to the 2nd half where the bass guitar was
somewhat taken down into the mix.
It may sound rough at times, but that's the nature of the original mix.
Also, some of the louder parts on the tape are hearably saturated.

I edited the missing part of Tr. 9 from the audience recording together with the boardtape .
Every second of recorded sound on my tapes was used for this remaster.
The edit -though clearly hearable- is acceptable to my taste.
While working on this, I also noticed that the tapes were running way too slow.
I corrected this with the pitch function of Adobe Audition (+0.53 semitones),
making the recording almost three minutes shorter.
The left and right channel of the original recording were also
slightly out of sync with each other, which I corrected as well.
No 'Noise Reduction' was used. NR kills the room ambiance of a
recording and it makes the hi-end sound unnatural.

Although this is still not a perfect recording, it is MILES better than the original 2001
version that is also available on archive.org.etree (and hopefully will be removed soon!).
And ferchrisakes, it's a pretty well balanced soundboard recording of ASMZ !
This is the only in one circulation (apart from FM sources).
It's too bad I only had those two crappy Type I tapes available to record this,
but better that than nothing....

The show itself is an absolute classic in my book.
I tend to prefer the old ASMZ to the current incarnation, although I'm into
the newer works as well.
'Could've move mountains' is just achingly beautiful, more so than the studio version
with the two simultanious different vocal-lines.
'Movie (never made)' & 'For Wanda' are Efrim's tribute's to his deceased dog Wanda,
and you can feel his crushing sadness just by listening to these pieces.
A concert I will not easily forget.

Prof. Stoned

PS: check my latest ASMZ recording here:
http://www.archive.org/details/asmz2007-04-14.aud-flac16